Smart Board Highlights

In this picture a student moves the pictures in the proper order to show the life cycle of a plant

 

  Now that we are studying up to the nine table in multiplication, we made our math games more challenging and competitive.  These interactive games make learning our tables more fun!

IPEVO Document Camera

Thanks to the PTO we have an IPEVO document camera that can magnify just about anything you want onto the SMART board.  We used the camera right away in science class to magnify and observe the seeds we are germinating.  You can then take a picture of it by pressing an icon on the Smart board and it saves it right to your picture file on the computer!  Can't wait to use this camera when the crayfish and beetles come in!  We love technology!!  

Learning More About Seeds

    We are continuing our study of seeds by watching the germination of bush beans, corn, peas and sunflower seeds.  We placed seeds in a seed sprouter and the students put some seeds in mini-sprouters.  We used water to keep the seeds moist.  We soon saw the seeds swell and lose their seed coat.  Then a root pushed through and eventually we had a stem and some small leaves.  We also opened up a bean seed to find the embryo inside.

     We are now growing some bean plants hydroponically!  We used six of our bush bean seedlings and placed them on a raft in just water with nutrients added.   We will chart the growth of two of these plants and watch them go through through the life cycle.
    

Learning About Seeds

We started a new unit in science called Life Structures.  We are beginning with a study of seeds.  Here the children are cutting open various "fruits" to study the properties of the seeds.

Owl Moon

     We read Owl Moon in reading class.  The children wrote retells for the story after having the story read aloud to them and then reading it silently.  The children used a rubric to assess their retells.  Then we shared them anonymously and graded them as a class using the rubric.

     We read other articles about the Great Horned Owl and listened to owl calls on the internet.  Then the children wrote owl paragraphs including two similes in their written pieces.  Later, they painted owl pictures using the technique of the illustrator in Owl Moon.  On Friday, we dissected owl pellets to try to find out what the owls ate.  The children recorded their observations in their science logs.  It was fun learning about owls!